The Slave of the Lamp

by Henry Seton Merriman

It would be inexpedient, for reasons closely connected with the tobacconist of the Rue St. Gingolphe, as well as with other gentlemen still happily with us in the flesh, to be too exact as to dates. Suffice it, therefore, to say that it was only a few years ago that Mr. Jacquetot sat one evening as usual in his little shop. It happened to be a Tuesday evening, which is fortunate, because it was on Tuesdays and Saturdays that the little barber from round the corner called and shaved the vast cheeks of the tobacconist. Mr. Jacquetot was therefore quite presentable—doubly so, indeed, because it was yet March, and he had not yet entered upon his summer season.

The little street was very quiet. There was no through traffic, and folks living in this quarter of Paris usually carry their own parcels. It was thus quite easy to note the approach of any passenger, when such had once turned the corner. Some one was approaching now, and Mr. Jacquetot threw away the stump of a cheap cigar. One would almost have said that he recognised the step at a considerable distance. Young people are in the habit of considering that when one gets old and stout one loses in intelligence; but this is not always the case. One is apt to expect little from a fat man; but that is often a mistake. Mr. Jacquetot weighed seventeen stone, but he was eminently intelligent. He had recognised the footstep while it was yet seventy mètres away.

In a few moments a gentleman of middle height paused in front of the shop, noted that it was a tobacconist's, and entered, carrying an unstamped letter with some ostentation. It must, by the way, be remembered that in France postage-stamps are to be bought at all tobacconists'.

The new-comer's actions were characterised by a certain carelessness, as if he were going through a formula—perfunctorily—without admitting its necessity.

He nodded to Mr. Jacquetot, and rather a pleasant smile flickered for a moment across his face. He was a singularly well-made man, of medium height, with straight, square shoulders and small limbs. He wore spectacles, and as he looked at one straight in the face there was a singular contraction of the eyes which hardly amounted to a cast—moreover, it was momentary. It was precisely the look of a hawk when its hood is suddenly removed in full daylight. This resemblance was furthered by the fact that the man's profile was birdlike. He was clean-shaven, and there was in his sleek head and determined little face that smooth, compact self-complacency which is to be noted in the head of a hawk.

The face was small, like that of a Greek bust, but in expression it suggested a yet older people. There was that mystic depth of expression which comes from ancient Egypt. No one feature was obtrusive—all were chiselled with equal delicacy; and yet there was only one point of real beauty in the entire countenance. The mouth was perfect. But the man with a perfect mouth is usually one whom it will be found expedient to avoid. Without a certain allowance of sensuality no man is genial—without a little weakness there is no kind heart. This Frenchman's mouth was not, however, obtrusively faultless. It was perfect in its design, but, somehow, many people failed to take note of the fact. It is so with the “many,” one finds. The human world is so blind that at times it would be almost excusable to harbour the suspicion that animals see more. There may be something in that instinct by which dogs, horses, and cats distinguish between friends and foes, detect sympathy, discover antipathy. It is possible that they see things in the human face to which our eyes are blinded—intentionally and mercifully blinded. If some of us were a little more observant, a few of the human combinations which we bring about might perhaps be less egregiously mistaken.

It was probably the form of the lips that lent pleasantness to the smile with which Mr. Jacquetot was greeted, rather than the expression of the velvety eyes, which had in reality no power of smiling at all. They were sad eyes, like those of the women one sees on the banks of the Upper Nile, which never alter in expression—eyes that do not seem to be busy with this life at all, but fully occupied with something else: something beyond to-morrow or behind yesterday.

“Not yet arrived?” inquired the new-comer in a voice of some distinction. It was a full, rich voice, and the French it spoke was not the French of Mr. Jacquetot, nor, indeed, of the Rue St. Gingolphe. It was the language one sometimes hears in an old château lost in the depths of the country—the vast unexplored rural districts of France—where the bearers of dangerously historical names live out their lives with a singular suppression and patience. They are either biding their time or else they are content with the past and the part played by their ancestors therein. For there is an old French and a new. In Paris the new is spoken—the very newest. Were it anything but French it would be intolerably vulgar; as it is, it is merely neat and intensely expressive.

“Not yet arrived, sir,” said the tobacconist, and then he seemed to recollect himself, for he repeated:

“Not yet arrived,” without the respectful addition which had slipped out by accident.